Memory and the Imagination
I am interested in the question of how much we should build into the content of our memories. What exactly are the intentional objects of memory? Are they entities (objects, events, states of affairs) out there, in the world, are they mental entities of some kind, or are they some combination of the two? I have tried to make a case for the view that memories represent their own causal origin. This is a view reminiscent of 'token reflexive' approaches to the semantics of indexicals in that, according to this view, memories represent themselves. I have used this view to account for certain aspects of the phenomenology and the epistemology of memory. Among other aspects, I have investigated the so-called 'feeling of pastness' in memory, the perspectivity of memory, and the capacity of memory to support judgments that are immune to error through misidentification.
This research has been funded by the Australian Research Council as part of the Discovery project "The truth about false memory".
More recently, I have turned to the topic of the imagination. I am interested in the issue of how much we should build into the content of our sensory imaginative episodes. I have offered a counterfactual account of imaginative content according to which, when one tries to imagine a state of affairs by having some experience, what one imagines, strictly speaking, is the following: If one perceived the relevant state of affairs, then one would have an experience like the experience that one is currently having. I have used this proposal about imaginative content to try to make sense of what we do when we imagine, in some sense, that we are someone else having some property. In the future, I am hoping to use it in order to shed some light on certain problems in aesthetics, such as the puzzle of imaginative resistance and the paradox of fiction.
Publications
BOOK
(2019) Memory: A Self-Referential Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BOOK CHAPTERS
(2023) “The ownership of memories”, in M. García-Carpintero & M. Guillot (Eds.) Self-Experience. Essays on Inner Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2018) "The functional character of memory" in D. Debus, K. Michaelian and D. Perrin (eds.) New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory. London: Routledge.
(2017) "Intentional objects of memory" in S. Bernecker and K. Michaelian (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. London: Routledge.
(2015) "Externalism, Self-Knowledge and Memory" in S. Goldberg (Ed.) Externalism and Skepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2013) "Memory" in A. Bardon & H. Dyke (eds.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. London: Blackwell.
(2013) "Objects of Memory" in H. Pashler (Ed.) Encyclopedia of the Mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
(2023) "The contents of imagination", in Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
(2022) "Imagining oneself being someone else", in European Journal of Philosophy.
(2021) "Observer memory and immunity to error through misidentification", in Synthese.
(2021) "Defending functionalism and self-reference in memory", Estudios de Filosofía 64: 223-236.
(2019) "Self-referential memory and mental time travel", in Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
(2015) "Epistemic generation in memory", in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
(2015) "What are the benefits of memory distortion?", in Consciousness and Cognition
(2014) "Memory and immunity to error through misidentification", in Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
(2008) "Memory and Time", in Philosophical Studies.
(2008) "Memory, Past and Self", in Synthese.
(2006) "Memory and Perception: Remembering Snowflake", in Theoria
(2006) "The intentionality of memory", in Australasian Journal of Philosophy.